Kaya walked into her room and shut the door. For a moment she just stood there, staring at the wall like it held answers she didn't want to find.
Then she slid down against the door until she was sitting on the cold floor, knees pulled up, arms wrapped around herself.
She was tired. So damn tired.
The word "child" sat in her chest like a stone she couldn't swallow.
There was a time—years ago, in another life—when Kaya had wanted one. A family. Something soft in a world that was all edges. She'd let herself imagine it once, lying in a hospital bed after a mission went wrong, staring at the ceiling and thinking maybe there was more to life than killing and surviving.
But that was before she understood what it cost.
She still remembered the woman in her unit. Yuki. Twenty-six years old, three months pregnant, glowing with the kind of hope Kaya had never seen on a battlefield. She'd requested a transfer to desk work. Filled out the forms. Waited for approval.
